A $800k Business to Start, $60m Portfolio Today

And you are based where?

In Vancouver.

I am. Good question. 39 now. So, okay, that's a question that gets harder and harder as you advance in age. You have to kind of think back, but yeah.

Or are you in denial because the next one is the big four zero. And so you're trying to forget how old you are. I've been there. Well, that's very impressive.

Obviously, Andrew, that's why you're here and why we're eager to hear from you. Let's now hear what your background was kind of the first chapter of your. Of your career before you got into buying businesses. Please.

Yeah, I'll start from the beginning. I graduated Simon Fraser University, where my dad actually worked as a finance professor, if the name Blazenko is familiar to anyone in Canada. So I graduated 2009 in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and you know, a lot of my friends went into the CA CPA route.

Others went commercial banking because investment banking, there wasn't a lot of opportunities. But I met someone At Deloitte Corporate finance of all places. When Deloitte was on campus and this individual was, you know, down to earth, he talked about how he got to meet with business owners on his regular day to day job.

CEOs, CFOs. And the important piece is that he helps people in the most important business activity that they'll do in their careers and supports them through that process. And you know, that in contrast to investment bankers who, you know, I think as you described, they're a bit posh, they're a bit unapproachable, you know, not somebody that I would ever aspire to be personally.

And, and so this, this more down to earth guy spoke to me and post university I only look for jobs in corporate finance. You know, I, I found out pretty quickly that, you know, the Deloittes and the KPMGS and mid market M and A firms typically hire people with experience. I was just out of university so I just, I, I got a job with a small business broker for the first year of my, yeah, I actually…

And I, I basically did one valuation per week. These are small businesses, kind of say under 5 million, but most were under a million. So like coffee shops, small, you know, metal fabrication shops, you know, real Main.

Street stuff as we would call it here.